Love and Death Among the Cheetahs Read online

  “Not the sheet game. Too humiliating,” Tusker said. “I still remember one of the comments about me from last time.”

  There was general laughter and derisive remarks about this.

  “What’s the sheet game?” I asked Pansy Ragg, who was standing beside me.

  “Oh, great fun, darling,” she whispered into my ear. “A sheet is held up with holes in it. And the men display a certain part of their anatomy through the holes and we women have to guess who is which. Poor old Tusker. He was having a bad night and we made rather rude comments. I think it put him off his oats for weeks.”

  I was confused. What were they talking about? A foot? A nose? Then suddenly I remembered that mirror on the bedroom ceiling. Golly. Even though nobody was looking at me, I felt myself blushing bright red. Was this really what I thought it was? Surely not, I thought. People didn’t really . . .

  “Let’s play the feather game,” Babe said. “I’ve heard about it but I haven’t yet seen it in action.”

  “Oh yes, the feather game. Such fun,” Idina agreed with enthusiasm. “One of my favorites. So deliciously random.”

  “How do you play it?” I asked.

  “You have to blow feathers across the table,” Harry Ragg said. He still didn’t look as if he was enjoying himself; more like he wished himself somewhere else. “Rather silly, if you ask me.”

  “Men on this side, women on the other,” Idina instructed. “Jocelyn, bring the box of feathers from my bedroom, darling. It’s on my bed.”

  “Oh, that sounds like fun.” I went to take my place at the table, but Darcy grabbed my arm and yanked me back. “Georgiana, no. It’s not our sort of thing.”

  “But blowing feathers sounds harmless enough,” I said, giving him a questioning look. “What’s wrong with it?”

  He leaned closer and whispered to me. “The person the feather lands on is the person you sleep with. The men compete by blowing their feathers at the woman they want.”

  “Oh golly.” I gave him a horrified look and stepped away from the table.

  He took my arm firmly and marched me over to Idina. “Idina, Georgie and I are newlyweds. I don’t think we want to participate, so if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be off to our own room.”

  Idina draped her arms around his neck. “Oh dear, and I was so hoping to score you tonight, darling boy. I can tell you’ve been around the block a few times and I’m sure it would have been absolutely divine.” She was pressing her body up against him in the most provocative way. I resisted the urge to yank her away. She was our hostess after all. “What a pity, but I do understand. I didn’t want anyone else for at least a month or so after I married each of my husbands,” Idina said. Then she put a hand to her mouth and giggled again. “I tell a lie. I had a quick go with an old boyfriend when I was supposed to be changing into my going-away clothes after the wedding ceremony once. But that was just for old times’ sake.” She released Darcy, turned to me and stroked my cheek. “Anyway, my sweet innocents, off you go then and have some wild and unbridled sex in your own room. We usually meet around ten for breakfast, but if you want to eat earlier the boys will take care of you.” She left us and took her place at the table, saying, “The man who gets me tonight is a lucky fellow. I’m feeling very randy.”

  I can’t tell you how jolly glad I was when Darcy led me from that room. I was in a state of shock. I had no idea such things went on.

  Chapter 17

  MONDAY MORNING, AUGUST 12

  On the way home from Idina’s party. I have to confess I’m still in a state of shock and embarrassment. Either I am completely naïve or this is not normal behavior in polite society!

  I’m sure it doesn’t go on all the time in England. Well, apart from my mother, of course! It must be because we are so isolated and far from civilization here.

  I have to report that Darcy and I did not have wild and unbridled sex that night, or any kind of encounter at all, for that matter. I felt far too inhibited, knowing what was going on in the rooms around us, as well as with that mirror on the ceiling above us. I wondered where Bwana’s feather had landed. Pansy would be livid if it landed on Babe, I thought. And what about Sheila, the farmer’s wife? She didn’t look the type to be swapping partners, and that solid farmer husband did seem rather jealous. I tried not to imagine all those people making love to someone else’s wife, and I thanked my lucky stars that I was with Darcy. He might have had some wild flings in his previous life but I didn’t think he’d ever want to behave the way those people were acting now. At least I jolly well hope he wouldn’t!

  I don’t think either of us slept much. I was conscious of distant noises—not just the strange animal noises of the African night but other kinds of unsettling sounds. A shout, a laugh, a door slamming. Footsteps on the veranda outside our room. Someone running.

  “Are you asleep, Darcy?” I whispered as the burst of birdsong told me that it was almost day.

  “Not really,” he confessed.

  “Can we just slip away and go home now?” I asked. “I really don’t want to face those people at breakfast and I don’t want to wait until ten to say good-bye to Idina. If we go now we can write her a little thank-you note.”

  “For once I don’t think that it should say the customary ‘Thank you for having me,’” Darcy said with a chuckle.

  “‘Thank you for not having me’?” I suggested and we both laughed. I snuggled against him. “Oh, Darcy, I am glad I’m with you. What awful people they are. Surely married couples don’t behave like that in England or Ireland.”

  “Of course they do, my sweet,” he said. “As soon as our honeymoon is over I’ll be all for swapping you at every soiree.”

  “You won’t, will you?” I asked and he burst out laughing.

  “Just pulling your leg,” he said. “Don’t worry, I aim to keep you jealously to myself forever and a day.”

  “Oh good. That’s a relief.” I sat up. “So we can go now, then? I don’t even want to wait for a cup of tea.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” he said. “On any other occasion it would be frightfully rude, but given the circumstances . . .” He let the rest of the sentence hang in the air as he jumped out of bed. “Come on then. Get dressed. We won’t bother to wash until we get back to Diddy’s place.”

  I put on my jersey and slacks as quickly as possible and we crept out like two naughty schoolchildren playing truant. As we crossed the compound a group of small monkeys scattered and leaped up onto the roof, chittering at us. The air was icy cold and the upper slopes of the lone mountain called Kipipiri were hidden in cloud. The leather seat of the motorcar was equally cold and I hastily wrapped the travel rug around my knees. Darcy started the motor and we were off. The moment we passed under that gate and were on the road I felt a great weight lifting from me. We were going back to the safety and sanity, or relative sanity, of Diddy’s house, where the worst thing one had to worry about was the odd elephant or lion. Thank heavens Freddie Blanchford had selected her for us to stay with and not someone like Idina. I almost sang out loud.

  The sky brightened as we started along the road. I have found that there is no such thing as twilight or dawn in Africa. One minute it is dark and then instantly the sun comes up and the whole countryside flames with brilliant light. That’s how it was that morning. Tall trees cast shadows across the dusty red dirt of the road. Birds swooped ahead of us in bright flashes of color. A small animal scurried across the road too quickly to identify. I caught a glimpse of black and white monkeys bounding through the trees. It really was quite enchanting. Then suddenly we came to an area where the road swung closer to the mountain slopes. On the other side the river flowed swiftly over rocks and a light mist hung over the valley. The trees and rocks became ghostly shapes. Darcy drove carefully, ready for an animal to step out in front of us.

  We came to the spot where the road narrowed as it
passed between huge boulders. Darcy slowed to a crawl as we were about to negotiate the little stream that crossed our path. It was lucky he was already going slowly as we came around the bend because he had to jam on the brakes. I put out my hands to the dashboard to steady myself.

  “What is it?” I whispered, peering through the mist ahead, expecting him to say “elephant” or “lion.”

  “Some damned fool has left a motorcar parked on the road.”

  We stopped and Darcy got out. The mist was already clearing with the heat of the sun, so that it swirled in strands, revealing a convertible motorcar, with nobody inside and the driver’s door wide open.

  “The driver might have broken down and gone for help,” I said.

  “And just left the road blocked?” Darcy still sounded annoyed. “If the mist had been any thicker we would have slammed right into it.”

  “Well, if the motor cut out suddenly he wouldn’t have had much choice, would he?” I asked.

  “I wonder if there is a property close by where he might have gone. . . .” Darcy looked around. “I don’t remember any houses or driveways on this part of the road, do you?”

  “It was dark,” I reminded him. “I was so concerned about elephants that I wasn’t looking for driveways.”

  Darcy shook his head impatiently. “I really don’t want to wait until he reappears with help. Do you think you can help me move it? If we both push?”

  “We can try,” I said, getting out to join him. “Although we’d have to push it for a good way before we could get around it. The road is narrow here for quite a while, I remember.”

  “Let’s see how easy it is to move,” Darcy said. He walked toward the motorcar, then he stopped suddenly.

  “What is it?”

  “Listen,” he said. “The motor is still running.”

  The daylight had brought the screech of cicadas that had drowned out other sounds and, of course, our own car engine was still running so I hadn’t heard the purr of this motor.

  “He can’t have gone far, then. Hello!” he called. “Anybody there?”

  His voice echoed from high rocks, causing a flapping of wings somewhere in the bushes. But nobody answered.

  “What an imbecile,” Darcy said. “You don’t get out in the middle of nowhere and leave the engine running. I hope he didn’t just heed the call of nature and meet a lion or leopard lurking.”

  I was feeling more and more uneasy. I sensed something was very wrong. I could feel a watchfulness, eyes observing us.

  “Do you think we should go back?” I asked. “We could tell the others and send help.”

  “I don’t want to turn around and go all that way unless we really have to,” Darcy said. “I could drive his car until I can pull off the road and we could get around it. That would be the simplest thing to do. I’d rather get on home, wouldn’t you?”

  “But we can’t just drive away. Not like this. Shouldn’t we look for the driver?”

  “And if he’s just stopped off to deliver something at a house nearby? We don’t know—there might be a property right beside the road and the driver wouldn’t have expected any other vehicle to come along at this hour.”

  “But what if something awful has happened to him?”

  “Then we might be stepping right into danger ourselves,” Darcy said. “If he met a lion or a leopard there’s nothing we can do right now.”

  “If he’s lying injured nearby?” I said. “If a lion has dragged him off into the bushes.”

  “If he’s met a lion or a leopard there is little chance he’d still be alive.” Darcy’s face was grim as he scanned the terrain beside the road. “And if we come upon a feasting lion . . . I don’t rate our chances highly. I don’t suppose he left a gun in the car?”

  We looked. A dinner jacket had been dropped carelessly onto the front seat, along with a bow tie. A suitcase and a pair of evening shoes rested on the backseat, along with a neatly folded scarf.

  “At least let me drive this out of the way,” Darcy said. He started to get into the idling motorcar. I was conscious that we were horribly vulnerable, standing there. Then to my left there was a movement among the bushes. I jumped up onto the running board beside Darcy, expecting a wild animal to spring at me, until I saw it was only a large black bird.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “Only a bird.”

  Darcy got out again. “A vulture,” he said. “That’s not good.”

  The vulture reluctantly flapped out of his way as he started to walk into the tall grass and shrubbery beyond.

  “Darcy, be careful,” I called after him as he pushed his way between bushes.

  “Ow,” he called. “These bushes have wicked thorns on them.” Then he said, “Oh my God. Stay where you are.”

  But I was already following, carefully trying to avoid the worst of the thorns and getting my hand scratched in the process. “What is it? Have you found him?”

  “Oh yes,” Darcy said. “I’ve found him.”

  I came out between the bushes to where an area had been flattened down. All I saw to begin with were the vultures—lots of them. Some hopped away reluctantly, some rose into the air in a black cloud of flapping wings as Darcy approached. A body, or the remains of a body, was lying sprawled facedown on the grass.

  “Who is it?” I asked. And then I saw. Something had already fed on the body but I recognized that blond hair and how it curled, a little long, at the back of his neck. Something had eaten Bwana Hartley, Lord Cheriton.

  Chapter 18

  AUGUST 12

  ON THE ROAD IN THE WANJOHI VALLEY

  I feel awful. I didn’t like Lord Cheriton, but nobody should die like this, eaten as if he was a joint of meat.

  “We must go back to Idina’s,” Darcy said. “She’s closer than Diddy, and she has a telephone. She can call the police and get Freddie before he sets off on his safari.”

  “She won’t be awake. None of them will,” I said.

  “Too bad. We’ll have to wake her.” He went back to Bwana’s motorcar and turned off the engine. “No point in leaving that running,” he said. “And I don’t want to waste time trying to move it.”

  I suddenly realized I was going to be sick. The alcohol from the night before had made me feel queasy since I woke up, but the sight of that body was a final straw. I rushed into the grass beside the road and emptied my stomach. Darcy came up to me and put a comforting hand on my back. “It’s only natural,” he said. “It was a pretty gruesome sight, wasn’t it?”

  “It was horrible,” I said, reaching for a handkerchief to wipe my mouth. “That poor man. I didn’t like him but I wouldn’t have wished this on my worst enemy. What an awful way to die.”

  Darcy stood staring back toward the place where Bwana lay. “It doesn’t make sense to me. He had been in this country for years. I would have said he knew it better than anyone else. So why would he have let himself be caught unawares by a big cat—if that’s what it was.”

  “What else would have eaten part of his body?”

  “Hyenas. They are the scavengers, aren’t they? If they’d smelled him lying there dead they would have had a good feast.”

  “Don’t.” I shivered. “We should get help as soon as possible so that those revolting vultures don’t eat the rest of him.”

  Darcy held up a hand to show he’d just had an idea, then pointed toward our own car. “There is the rug in our motorcar. At least we can cover him so that the vultures don’t destroy the evidence for when the police get here.”

  “Good idea. We can weigh the edges down with stones to stop them from pulling it off in a hurry.” I started picking up rocks from the roadbed. In truth I was glad to have something to keep me busy so that I didn’t have to think too much. Darcy retrieved our rug and we made our way back to the body, Darcy holding the thorny branches aside for me. The vultures
were even more reluctant to leave it this time. The way they stood and looked at us in that sinister hunched-over manner of theirs made them seem like the epitome of evil. Darcy had to shoo them away by waving the rug at them. Even so they retreated only a few feet away and stood there, patiently waiting for us to leave again. He stood looking down at Bwana’s remains, frowning. “What is he doing over here?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean what made him get out of the car and come so far off the track?”

  “Perhaps a lion dragged him off before it ate him.”

  “A lion wouldn’t have opened the car door,” he said dryly. “And if a leopard had leaped down on him from one of those rocks, it would have killed him in the car seat. And there would be signs of a struggle, blood in the car, and there’s none. He opened the door and got out, leaving the engine running. Why?”

  “You said it yourself—he needed to heed the call of nature. He went into the bushes to relieve himself and some kind of wild animal was lurking there and attacked him.”

  Darcy nodded, still frowning. “Yes, I suppose so. But would he have risked getting out of his car here, of all places, where an animal was most likely to ambush him in the dark? Why not drive on a little until the valley opens out again and there are fields of crops beside the road?”

  “The call was desperate?”

  “In the middle of the night there would have been no reason to go so far into the bushes. They are thorny, for one thing. He’d risk getting badly scratched in the dark. And there was certainly nobody to see.” Darcy sighed. “Anyway, I just don’t think he’d be stupid enough to stop here, unless he had to.”

  “If a lion was blocking the road, ready to spring?” I suggested.

  “He is in a powerful motorcar. He revs the motor. He drives straight at it. Lions aren’t stupid. It would get out of the way.”